


A Network, Mycelial

by awaytobeunshaken



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 12:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awaytobeunshaken/pseuds/awaytobeunshaken
Summary: A younger Paul Stamets dreams of a universe he thinks he'll never see.





	A Network, Mycelial

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by artwork from Aphelyon

_ Something tears at his limbs, pulling him in a hundred directions at once. He’s not sure where he is, or where he came from, but he sees the next destination clear as day... _

“Fuck!” Paul bolts out of bed, just barely making it to the bathroom to deposit last night’s dinner in the toilet. “Fuck,” he mutters again, once the heaving has subsided. He rinses his mouth and shuffles to the kitchen.

“Shit, man, you look like death.” Paul doesn’t answer, just seats himself at the counter of their student apartment and rests his head in his hands. “Seriously, though, are you okay?” Straal continues, sounding uncharacteristically concerned. “Can I get you something?”

“Just coffee.” He tries to keep the whine out of his voice but doesn’t entirely succeed. Seconds later, Straal sets a steaming mug in front of him. “Thanks.” He takes a sip, burning his tongue but barely noticing. 

“No problem.” Straal settles himself in the other stool. “What’s going on?”

Paul swallows a couple more mouthfuls of coffee before answering. “I’ve been having this dream the past few nights. I don’t know where I am. Almost like I’m floating out in space without a suit, except... not. I don’t remember much else about it, but it always makes me wake up with a headache, at least. This morning it was bad enough to make me puke.”

Straal shrugs. “Maybe you’re pregnant.”

“Fuck off.”

“I dunno. Have you been using our lab samples recreationally again?” 

“That was one time!” The banter with Straal seems to help more than the caffeine. Grounding him, reminding him what’s real.

His dissertation defense that week is a breeze.

He has the dream again; not frequently, not with any regularity, but every so often he wakes up from that vision of dozens of universes surrounding him, threads of life connecting them, and a voice calling his name. He’s not superstitious, but he learns to associate the dream’s emergence with important events in his life: setting up the lab on Deneva, the discovery of that first  _ Prototaxites Stellaviatori  _ specimen, the day he met Hugh. 

And right before Lorca delivered the news about the Glenn. 

By then, of course he’s realized even from their brief jumps that the threads surrounding him are the mycelial network itself. He realizes something else, too; the voice calling his name belongs to Hugh. He’s told Hugh about the dream before, but elects not to share this new information. He tries to put it out of his mind, which is easy enough with so much else demanding his attention, and when the dream resurfaces in the hazy unconsciousness after his series of jumps near Pahvo, it’s easy enough to dismiss as a side-effect of those jumps.

Until he comes face to face with Hugh in the network itself, and is forced to leave him behind.

He stares at the reaction cube, heart in his throat, wondering what might await him in the mycelial plane. 

_ “Fungi are the universe’s recyclers. This is how termination begets creation. It’s why life is eternal. And my place is on this side of that cycle. If I return to the network and see him again...” _

It’s not the network he remembers. Not the real one, anyway. Even in their journey home from the Terran universe, with reality spread in front of him and only Hugh’s voice providing him with any sense of direction, it wasn’t the network from his dream. There was still some sense of order, even if he couldn’t quite follow it at the time. But now it’s all here; the fractures in reality, the weird planets drifting overhead, and that tortured voice crying out, “PAUL!”

And he’s frozen, just for a moment, before remembering that he’s piloting a ship full of people and he’ll be dooming them all if he stays here. He closes his eyes against the tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, then guides Discovery back into normal space.


End file.
